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To Review Part I, P art II,   Part III    Part IV   Part V

Meanwhile back in the USA:
The campaign to sell the invasion of Iraq to the American people was
beginning. This was an insidious campaign to build up threats and to gain
support of the American people. The objective was to create a growing fear of
an enemy, namely Saddam, by dramatizing his ever-expanding supply of WMD’s
which he was ready to sell to any Islamic terrorist willing to kill us.

Without even mentioning Saddam or Iraq by name, President Bush offered his
rationale for a preemptive assault on Iraq to the graduates of West Point in
June 2002: “Containment is not possible when unbalanced dictators with
weapons of mass destruction can deliver those weapons on missiles or
secretly provide them to terrorist allies…. If we wait for threats to fully
materialize, we will have waited too long”

We started hearing “there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons
of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our
friends, against our allies, and against us.” Cheney, 08/26/02 to the VFW. This
was coupled with the supposed ‘known’ links between Al Qaeda and Saddam,
including a comment by our President: Al Qaeda could become "an extension
of Saddam's madness."

Then, President Bush on 10/07/02, announced “Facing clear evidence of peril,
we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the
form of a mushroom cloud.”. The “smoking gun” comment became quite
popular. It was used over and over by Cheney and Rice in various settings and
speeches. The idea was to make us very afraid of this nation whose stability
and strength had been severely restricted by ten years of containment. Colin
Powell’s assessment in 2001, was “… frankly they [sanctions] have worked. He
[Saddam] has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons
of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his
neighbors. So in effect, our policies have strengthened the security of the
neighbors of Iraq…” (Do not try to find this Press conference on the official
State Department website: it has been removed)    Yet in virtually every
interview and speech by administration officials the threats were repeated and
expanded.

January 2003 the President in his State of the Union Address   introduced us to
the fabled Yellow Cake Uranium from Africa. All of these “truths” and “facts”,
that the British rejected out of hand as weak and unfounded accusations, were
being fed to Americans on a daily basis by our leaders. The point: to create an
atmosphere of fear here in the US. Or in Straussian terms: if there is no
external threat, manufacture one. Or as the President stated in one of his more
recent speeches "See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things
over and over and over again for the truth [????] to sink in, to kind of catapult
the propaganda." —George W. Bush, Greece, N.Y., May 24, 2005

Sept. 17,2002 Iraq agrees to weapons inspections.   The renewed weapons
inspection program, was a contrivance of the British government to find a
legal basis for going to war. Saddam’s acquiescing at this point was a problem
for both the US and the UK. The inspections complicated the UK’s legal
scenario and delayed the US attack plans. The plan was to attack in January to
avoid the hot Iraqi summer.

In February, Hans Blix, head of the inspection team, and Mohamed ElBaradei,
director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, reported: no
evidence of weapons were found, Iraq was not restricting the inspectors, and
was cooperating reasonably well (there could be improvement) but since the
inspections were not complete they could not rule out WMD’s entirely. They
requested time to complete the inspections

By March of 2003, the message had burgeoned to this: “Saddam Hussein has a
long history of reckless aggression and terrible crimes. He possesses
weapons of terror. He provides funding and training and safe haven to
terrorists -- terrorists who would willingly use weapons of mass destruction
against America and other peace-loving countries. Saddam Hussein and his
weapons are a direct threat to this country, to our people, and to all free
people." The plan was working, we were all very afraid. So on March 19, 2003
even though the weapons inspections were not complete, and just a few days
after the President said “hopefully this can be done peacefully, we began our
“Shock and Awe Campaign”.

Of course now we know: there were no WMD’s, and even though Dick Cheney
won’t say it out loud, I think we are finally coming to terms with; there was no
connection between Osama and Saddam. Yellow Cake Uranium, was the story
debunked before it was ever told but: that didn't stop the telling of it. The Iraqi
scientists that were to lead us to the WDM's as soon as Saddam was caught,
went the way of the mobile chemical labs that Colin Powell regrets he ever
mentioned to the UN. Now the spin is to place all of the blame upon poor
intelligence. Can we really accept that the administration was tricked by our
own intelligence? No, we cannot. The Downing Street Memos tell us that the
British, our closest ally, knew beforehand that the arguments our
administration was planning to use to sell the war were weak and unfounded.
It is time for us to face the facts, set aside the blind patriotism that paralyzes
our thinking, and recognize: we were betrayed!   This inflammatory evidence
that spilled out of our leader's mouths was not just a mistake; this was a well
executed plan designed to trigger our fear and incite us into supporting a war.
A war to topple Saddam, who was obviously a monster and a pain in the ass
internationally, but he was never a direct threat to us.

I’m sure you will recoil from the truth of this next quote because of the history
of it’s author:
Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England,
nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the
leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to
drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a
parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can
always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do
is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of
patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any
country. - Hermann Goering
Nevertheless, the statement is true and it has just been proven in this country
over the past 5 years.   And we should be very afraid: especially as we
approach Iran which is the current nominee to replace Iraq in this mythical war
on terror.

Please watch: CNN Presents: Dead Wrong: Inside an Intelligence Meltdown,
Saturday Aug. 27th. @ 2pm, 7pm &10pm: but while you are watching it, consider
what you have learned from the Downing Street Memos.